Reality capture / Industrial and plant

Reality capture for industrial and plant · Cape Town

Design the tie-in to the plant as it stands, not as the P&IDs remember it

3D laser scanning and as-built models of plant, piping, structure and equipment for brownfield upgrades, tie-ins and reverse engineering. Scan only, tied to your control, or scan and model in Plant 3D, Revit or Inventor.

Africa's only Autodesk Platinum Partner · Fixed price for a defined deliverable · Registration report with every project

See an industrial sample ↓

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SOUND FAMILIAR?

Brownfield drawings stop being true the day the plant starts up

Decades of modifications, none of them drawn
Every shutdown added a bypass, a valve or a support that never made it back onto the drawings.

No time on a live plant
Tape measures and lasers need people in the plant for days. A scanner captures a whole area in hours, without touching anything.

Clashes found during installation
New piping drawn against old drawings meets a cable rack or a beam that was never recorded, and the fix happens at site rates.

Legacy equipment with no drawings
Pumps, skids and castings from suppliers who no longer exist, needing a replacement that fits first time.

WHAT YOU GET

Choose the deliverable your project needs

One plant area, four ways to receive it. Order the point cloud on its own, or let us turn it into a model your engineers can design against.

  • Point cloud, tied to control

    Scan only

    Registered, survey-grade and on your site coordinate system, as E57, RCP or LAS. Loads into Plant 3D, Navisworks, Revit and Inventor.

    For teams that model in-house

  • As-built plant model

    Scan and model

    Piping, equipment, structure and cable racks modelled from the point cloud in Plant 3D, Revit or Inventor at LOD 100 to 300, classified by discipline.

    Brownfield design and clash-free tie-ins

  • Cropped areas and sections

    Scan and extract

    Just the areas you are working on, cut from the full cloud with 2D sections and elevations where you need them.

    Tie-in packages and isometrics

  • 3D mesh for reverse engineering

    Add-on

    A surface mesh of a pump, casting or skid for modelling a replacement in Inventor or Fusion.

    Spares and replacements that fit

Also available: control-point tie-in · LOD 350 and 400 on request.

Model it yourselves? We supply ReCap Pro, Plant 3D, Inventor and ReCap training, and workstations that handle large scans.

PROJECTS

Plant and structures we have captured

  • Pump-house, Cape Town

    Industrial · Scan and model · Revit and Inventor

  • HMS Protector, Cape Town

    Marine · Scan only · Full vessel

  • [Industrial project]

    [Sector] · [Deliverable]

FAQ

Questions plant engineers ask us

Can you scan a live plant?

Yes. Scanning is non-contact and the scanner stands on a tripod or is carried through the area, so production carries on. We follow your permit-to-work and induction requirements and can work in shutdown windows where access is restricted.

Can you tie the scan to our plant coordinate system?

Yes. We tie the registered point cloud to your survey control points as an optional extra, so it sits on your site grid and lines up with your existing drawings and models.

Which software can we use the data in?

Point clouds in E57, RCP, LAS or LAZ for Plant 3D, Navisworks, Revit, Inventor and most other packages. Models in Plant 3D, Revit or Inventor, organised to your standards.

How accurate is it?

Our FARO Focus S70 has a ranging error of ±1 mm, and every project comes with a registration report showing the accuracy achieved. Where plant extends over long distances we combine scanners and tie to control so the error does not accumulate.

Which level of detail do we need?

LOD 100 places equipment and structure as placeholders for feasibility and layout studies, LOD 200 gives generic geometry for concept design, and LOD 300 gives accurate pipework, equipment and structure for tie-in design and clash detection. Most brownfield work is LOD 300. LOD 350 and 400 are available on request.

Can you reverse engineer a part with no drawings?

Yes. We scan the item, produce a surface mesh, and either hand it to your team or model the replacement in Inventor or Fusion for manufacture.

What does it cost?

Every project is a fixed price for a defined deliverable, based on the area, the complexity of the plant, access and whether you need a model. Send us the basics and we will come back with a price.

Which areas do you cover?

We are based in Cape Town and work across the Western, Eastern and Northern Cape, and take on projects elsewhere in Africa.

WHY CLIENTS USE MODENA

A model your engineers can design against

  • Classified by discipline, not a blob of points

    Pipes are pipes, steel is steel and equipment is equipment, so clash checks and tie-in design work from day one.

  • Built by the people who teach Plant 3D and Inventor

    Our modellers are the same specialists who run our Autodesk training, with their own tools for working with point clouds.

  • Accuracy you can check

    FARO Focus scanners with ±1 mm ranging error, control-point tie-in, and a registration report with every project.

  • Scope and price in writing

    Area, disciplines, level of detail and tolerance agreed before we scan, quoted as a fixed price.

  • 1. Send us the basics

    Site, the plant area, what the data is for, and any existing drawings or control.

  • 2. Fixed-price quote

    Deliverable, disciplines, level of detail and timeline agreed in writing.

  • 3. Site scan

    Inducted technicians scan around production or within your shutdown window.

  • 4. Registration and QA

    Scans joined, tied to control if ordered, checked, and documented in a registration report.

  • 5. Model and handover

    Modelled to your standards if ordered, then a walkthrough of the files with your team.

REQUEST A QUOTE

Tell us about the plant area and we will come back with a fixed price

Include the site, the area or units involved, what the data is for, and whether you have survey control. Existing drawings help if you have them.

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